Hello and happy Sunday friends. How have your weekends been?

I have had a crappy weekend as I’ve had a head cold since Thursday night. I’ve had three crappy nights of sleep in a row since I couldn’t breathe through my nose and was waking up with a dry mouth every hour. I finally went and bought a neti pot today despite my initial fear of it and it seems to have helped a bit. I skipped my run with friends this morning due to feeling under the weather and I don’t want to have to skip anymore workouts this week so I’m hoping I’m better asap!

Anyways, I was writing posts to schedule this week and was going to make this into two separate posts but decided to hodge-podge it into one. Especially since I’m sure a lot of people won’t be reading the latter half of this week with American Thanksgiving coming up!

Meal Planning

On Tuesday when Eric and I got home from our trip I made a grocery list and a meal plan. Something I never do! It has been so successful this week I am definitely starting to meal plan regularly.

I was in a major cooking funk this spring/summer but I’ve quickly realized that all it takes to get me back in the kitchen is cold weather and dark days. I have really been enjoying cooking our meals on a nightly basis this week. Cooking is a great release for me after a long day of work and I find it really relaxing and soothing.

This week I made squash, green bean and mushroom casserole, thai veggie burgers, lentil and olive enchilada’s, and spaghetti and lentil meatballs (the last three were all from the Peas and Thank You cookbook!)

These were all delicious meals and relatively easy to make. Plus the boys enjoyed them and anyone who lives with boys knows how hard it can be to get them to eat healthy food! Meal planning was so successful this last week I definitely want to keep it up.

This weeks challenge is to meal plan from what’s in the cupboard/fridge as we have enough stuff NOT to make another grocery trip just yet. I think meal planning from the cupboards will be a whole ‘nother challenge!

Base Building

I have been thinking a lot about marathon training lately. I think one of the biggest mistakes I made during my first marathon training cycle was I basically took five weeks off running (sprained my ankle, went to Europe, got strep throat) and then jumped into marathon training without building much of a base. The very first week of training I went out hard with five runs on deck and by the end of that week I was feeling a tweak in my shin – the very first week of training.

This time around I’m doing things differently. And one of those things is building up a decent base before starting to train. My mileage has been low since I ran the half-marathon in October and the last two weeks it’s been laughable. We went to Orlando and I didn’t run for five days. Then I got sick this past week and didn’t run for five days. Bah.

I have until January 2 before my training cycle actually starts, so my biggest goal is spending the next six weeks building up a solid base. I want to climb back up to running 20ish mile weeks comfortably. I also want to focus on strength training and building a strong core and upper body.

One thing I discovered when I was training for my sub-2 hour half was figuring out my training plan week-to-week worked better for me then having it all mapped out ahead of time. Usually on Sunday’s I would sit down and write my running + cross-training plans for the week in my life planner.

So today I mapped out the long runs for the next six weeks and I will figure out the shorter mid-week runs as I go. I want to do 8 miles, 9 miles, 10 miles, 11 miles, 8 miles, 10 miles (starting with 8 next weekend on the 26 or 27). I’m hoping that this will allow me to start my marathon training cycle feeling strong and prepared!

This is also making me feel better about barely running the last two weeks…I’m determined to come back strong this week!

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Questions of the day: Have you ever used a neti pot? Do you meal planning? Any advice or thoughts r.e. base building?

My Sunday morning have drastically shifted gears recently compared to the last few months. I kind of like it. All summer the weekend mornings – and especially Sundays – were for training. Long bike rides or long runs.

Now, with a two-month break from training I’m enjoying my laidback weekend mornings. This morning I didn’t set an alarm and rolled out of bed around 8:00 AM. With Eric and Logan still in bed I had the “house to myself” (or as close to myself as it gets when three people and two animals all live in a 1,300 square foot townhouse!)

I spent the morning in the kitchen, listening to Adele, baking pumpkin scones and starting the Sunday laundry.

I then ate said scone while catching up on emails and reading blogs.

After I’m done posting this blog post I might read a book, or a magazine, or watch some TV, or maybe I’ll be ambitious and get a few blog posts pre-written so I can break out of my 3 posts per week rut.

Or I might go for a run. If I feel like it. I’m thoroughly enjoying my Sunday mornings lately and I figure I better take advantage of them while I can. Two months from today I’ll be back to those early morning workouts and training schedules!

What are your Saturday and Sunday mornings like?

Lisa gave me a fabulous birthday present when I saw her in Victoria; Mama Pea’s Cookbook!

I’ve already made two recipes from it: Thai Veggie Burgers and Pea Daddy’s Jambalaya. Both were smashing hits!

I think my favourite thing about this cookbook so far is how ridiculously easy the recipes are (at least the two I’ve made). Vegan and vegetarian recipes can often involve a lot of complicated steps and take a long time to make. Mama Pea’s recipes are really simple and straightforward and both these recipes took less than 30 minutes and involved just a few dishes.

I am trying to cook bulk meals on the weekends to get us through the weeks lately as last week we relied on eating out way too much. Next I have my eyes on her tempeh chili and cowgirl cornbread I highly recommend this cookbook, I can already tell it’s going to be one I turn to often. I was not asked to do this review, I just REALLY like this cookbook and wanted to sing it’s praises

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On a similar, foodie, note. I’ve started a Tumblr Blog: Girl with the Red Hair Eats. Weight has been a topic on my mind for the last few months and with heavy training being put on the back burner until December/January I think now is the time to get my eating in check. I’ve been indulging in far too many glasses of red wine and bowls of ice cream after work – I just finished eating ice cream and was drinking red wine while I wrote this post last night!

Even though it’s been on my mind the idea of counting calories repelled me. Then I thought about how conscious I am of what I’m eating on days when I record it on the blog and thought, why not do that regularly for awhile so I can get back in the habit of THINKING about what I eat instead of just mindlessly stuffing food in my mouth.

Except I don’t want to take over my precious blog with gazillion’s of boring old food photo’s that would result in multiple posts a day so I started a tumblr, downloaded the app for my iPhone and as of today I will be posting photos of everything I eat on there. My goal is to become more aware of what I’m putting in my mouth and to get back a bit of the balance I’m craving! Not sure how long it will last, maybe just until I start marathon training, maybe longer. We’ll see!

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Questions of the day: What is your favourite cookbook? Do you track your calories or your food intake in any way?